Fun Item/Build Diversity. (updated with image)

Hello! Welcome to a constructive post about how to make items more fun!

The point of this thread:

To generate ideas on ways to make the affixes of items feel more unique and important toward build diversity. If Blizzard could use any portion of any idea from this thread I would feel successful.

This post focuses only on the main attributes (Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence) and how Active and Passive Skills could make these affixes feel more important, while promoting build diversity and personality.

Rather than coming up with new affix types (making items more complex than they already are), we can explore using the current, less-desired, affixes in a logical way that promotes this goal.

The secondary attributes of each class have almost no use currently. They provide minor defensive bonuses but there is absolutely no reason to specifically look for or stack one.

Secondary Attributes:

Barbarian – Dexterity/Intelligence

Monk – Strength/Intelligence

DemonHunter – Strength/Intelligence

WitchDoctor – Strength/Dexterity

Wizard – Strength/Dexterity

Idea #1 - Give "Active" Skills two bonus effects, each based on one of the two secondary attributes of each class.

Here are examples of how it could work (one for each class):Keep in mind! I thought of these very quickly, I would imagine the developers of Blizzard could come up with much more creative ideas.

Barbarian – Cleave

Dexterity: Improves the area of effect by 1% per 50 Dexterity.Intelligence: Gives Cleave a chance to stun, 1% per 50 Intelligence.

Monk – Crippling Wave

Strength: Increases the damage of Crippling Wave by 1% per 50 Strength.Intelligence: Increases the movement speed and attack speed debuf by 1% per 50 Intelligence.

DemonHunter - Strafe

Strength: Reduces damage taken while using Strafe by 1% per 50 Strength.Intelligence: Reduces the channeling cost by 1% per 50 Intelligence.

WitchDoctor - Gargantuan

Strength: Increase Gargantuan's damage and armor by 1% per 50 Strength.Dexterity: Give Gargantuan a chance to stun on hit of 1% per 50 Dexterity.

Up to a cap per skill, where lower tier skills cap earlier. (to promote using both tree's low tier skills, even if you have much more of one attribute)

Maybe no cap for higher tier skills. (to promote continued stacking of a secondary attribute)

2. Accessing each tier of each tree requires having enough of it's attribute:

Tier 1 – 0 points of attribute. (skill effectiveness caps at 100)

Tier 2 – 100 points of attribute. (caps at 200)

Tier 3 – 200 points of attribute. (caps at 400)

Tier 4 – 400 points of attribute. (no cap)

Tier 5 – 800 points of attribute. (no cap)

Example:-A Barbarian has 178 Dexterity and 900 Intelligence.-He has access to Tiers 1 and 2 on the Dexterity Tree. -He has access to all Tiers on the Intelligence Tree.-Tier 1 and 2 in the Dexterity Tree will still be worth using even though he has way more Intelligence than Dexterity (because of effectiveness caps).

Example Image: (Just a layout, skills are in random places)
(Graphics used are Blizzard's, not my own.)

The Outcomes:

Your primary should still reign supreme, while the secondaries provide flavor and playstyle.

Ideally, (for a Barbarian) there will be some builds that stack Dexterity, some that stack Intelligence, and then some that use mixed amounts depending on what passive skills they want access to among the trees.

The better your gear, the more skills you have access to. It's another leveling system in the form of loot, post 60.

Attribute affixes on items will be much more exciting. More gear will find use/be saved/get traded.

Items gain personality and dictate builds.

There will be more choices than just damage and defense to think about when looking for gear.

Collecting multiple sets of gear will be useful for different builds.

Gems become much more interesting and useful in armor.

Sockets in armor will grow in value.

All "current" decently-geared 60s would start off with access to at least tiers 1-4 in each tree (based on their stats). There would be many viable builds with those options and no reason to complain about all the gear they bought. They could gradually change to which playstyle they prefer.

Other Thoughts:

The design of the skill trees could be in many ways. What I envision is 4-6 tiers. Using many of the current passive skills but separated among the two trees for matching style. Obviously adjusting their potency to the tier in the tree that they sit.

(ie.) If you obtained 1 skill point every 5 levels from level 10 on, you would have 11 points at level 60. If the skill trees were 6 tiers, you could only obtain one tier 6 passive skill, even if you had enough attributes to access all 6 tiers on both trees. (could also be 9 points for 5 tiers, 7 points for 4 tiers, etc.)

With the most powerful passives being at the top of the trees, most players would probably go extreme in one tree rather than dividing equally. Mid-tier passives should be designed to work nicely with each other too, to promote more diversity.

Suggestions from feedback:

How about in addition to your ideas, make the current skill affixes more interesting. Rather than just having "reduced cost of (skill) by X" and "increased crit chance of (skill) by %", add fun effects like "gives (skill) a % chance to stun/slow/knockback/lifesteal/etc". I can see builds being tied to specific skill-affixtype combinations.

If not that, than at least increase the number of skills that can have the current skill-affix type, and apply them more often.

I like that. Blizzard should fire the current team and hire you install.

Current, the non-main stats are useless.

Thank you!

Wouldn't it be nice if we looked for attributes based on the style we wanted to play our character?
-All Barbarians would have brute strength, but maybe you would like yours to be more agile than most, or maybe have more brains!
-A tough Monk, or a smart Monk.
-etc.

This is great thinking. We need more ideas like this to improve this game.

It's at least a great start, I love the idea of attributes somewhat suggesting what personality and style your character has. As long as primary attributes are still the core of the class, it would be awesome to see secondary attributes having strong effects like this. I like idea #2 a lot.

I really like Idea n°1. It's simple but I think Blizzard would believe it's too difficult to understand for the average player (just reading the oversimplified skills descriptions in the game show they want to make the skill system extremely simple).

The secondary attributes of each class have almost no use currently. They provide minor defensive bonuses but there is absolutely no reason to specifically look for or stack one.

Actually they aren't minor at all. 50 dex would give my wizard 2% dodge. I hardly find that minor for only 50 dex. Dodgeless classes will actually want a few hundreds of dex when pvp patch will come. Demon Hunters will want some armor/str.

In most slots a lot of theory crafting can go into what you need on a item. Your idea would be useful if this game lacked attributes but in reality it has a lot already. Some whine that there are too many. Right now I need to decide what I value more on my offhand: 150 vit or 8-10 APOC.

I really like Idea n°1. It's simple but I think Blizzard would believe it's too difficult to understand for the average player (just reading the oversimplified skills descriptions in the game show they want to make the skill system extremely simple).

The secondary attributes of each class have almost no use currently. They provide minor defensive bonuses but there is absolutely no reason to specifically look for or stack one.

Actually they aren't minor at all. 50 dex would give my wizard 2% dodge. I hardly find that minor for only 50 dex. Dodgeless classes will actually want a few hundreds of dex when pvp patch will come. Demon Hunters will want some armor/str.

In most slots a lot of theory crafting can go into what you need on a item. Your idea would be useful if this game lacked attributes but in reality it has a lot already. Some whine that there are too many. Right now I need to decide what I value more on my offhand: 150 vit or 8-10 APOC.

Well, I feel they are minor compared to other affixes you could have instead. Would you sacrifice 50 AR for 100 Int as a Barbarian? That's only a 5th the amount of resistance. Of course you'll take the Int if it's on an item in addition to the other 6 more important affixes you might be searching for. But there's never a reason to "search" for it.

Personally I agree that there might be too many affix types I'm really just trying to add flavor and personality to your character based on the affixes of your gear. Players generally all want the same affixes, it would be cool if different people went for different attributes based on how they like to play.

Right now I need to decide what I value more on my offhand: 150 vit or 8-10 APOC.

Doesn't that decision just help determine how effective you will be? It has nothing to do with the methods you will use while fighting. That's what I'm trying to get at. Affixes should give more playstyle options, not just improve effectiveness. They might as well just give us +dmg/+hp/+res stats and nothing else, that's all it feels like to me. The only affixes I like are the "chance to effect" types and the reduced costs of skill, those promote style and personality! Anyone agree at all?

Make sure to post this on the official forums... who knows, maybe for an expansion...

It's a really neat idea, but one that would definitely need a ton of testing... finding that sweetspot where you want to have enough stats to actually impact the gameplay (actually helping the skill instead of reducing its cost by say 1%); but not having it affect so much the skill that it completely breaks the planned combat mechanics..

Balancing could also be a nightmare, linking gear stats directly to specific skill/runes/builds, and then having to nerf them would cause major complaints (imagine the Wiz/Barb drama times 1000).

I absolutely like it, but I also understand from a game-design standpoint that even the best ideas need testing before being implemented.

Also, for the record, I just love how most people dismiss secondary stats as "useless" on weapons (instead of understanding that they actually have some value, instead of none). Makes getting that extra 400-500 str on Int focused gear so much easier than actually getting +armor rolls on them. And Dex is one of the best EHP boosters at low lvls, having only a few gear pieces with it can mean 15-20% more EHP against swarming mobs.

They hear from top-notch players how useless it is (because on their insane rolled gear it actually is) and jump in on the whine-wagon. But it can be really good for average/above-average geared players.

Make sure to post this on the official forums... who knows, maybe for an expansion...

It's a really neat idea, but one that would definitely need a ton of testing... finding that sweetspot where you want to have enough stats to actually impact the gameplay (actually helping the skill instead of reducing its cost by say 1%); but not having it affect so much the skill that it completely breaks the planned combat mechanics..

Balancing could also be a nightmare, linking gear stats directly to specific skill/runes/builds, and then having to nerf them would cause major complaints (imagine the Wiz/Barb drama times 1000).

I absolutely like it, but I also understand from a game-design standpoint that even the best ideas need testing before being implemented.

Cool, thanks for the response!
I wanted to post it here first where there are less threads about complaining and more that are constructive. At least to gather more feedback and ideas.

I agree that it would be a QA nightmare, but once again, just wanted to promote the concept of linking items and builds. It was a huge part od D2 that I believe is widely missed. My idea doesn't add complexity to items, it just makes their affixes more important.

Right now I need to decide what I value more on my offhand: 150 vit or 8-10 APOC.

Doesn't that decision just help determine how effective you will be? It has nothing to do with the methods you will use while fighting. That's what I'm trying to get at. Affixes should give more playstyle options, not just improve effectiveness. They might as well just give us +dmg/+hp/+res stats and nothing else, that's all it feels like to me. The only affixes I like are the "chance to effect" types and the reduced costs of skill, those promote style and personality! Anyone agree at all?

I agree. Most affixes are boring, because you can only get a plain upgrade (or downgrade), there is very little 'horizontal upgrading', except for the proc effects and the skill-specific affixes, like you said. Very true.

I agree. Most affixes are boring, because you can only get a plain upgrade (or downgrade), there is very little 'horizontal upgrading', except for the proc effects and the skill-specific affixes, like you said. Very true.

"Horizontal upgrading," Nicely put! We need more decisions to make with gear other than damage, defense, and hit points!

"Horizontal upgrading," Nicely put! We need more decisions to make with gear other than damage, defense, and hit points!

D2 made items much more exciting. The boosts to specific skills made them more unique, though a little too direct and boring maybe. We can use the attributes to boost skills without adding complexity to items.

Skill choices contribute to character personality.
Attributes thematically contribute to character personality.
Make them work together!

At this point, having secondary stat (other then vitality) is really a placeholder for other useful affixes. For example, +armor is better then strenght for non-barbs, similarly AR is way better then intellect. Dexterity gives dodge, which is actually useful even now, but
is generally overlooked as it doesn't increase DPS.

WarlockHolmez, you should copy this post over to the D3 forums where Blues could (possibly) read it. There's a wealth of good ideas here. Just be careful: those forums are like the wild west...

Hah, I know. That's why i posted here first. I want to refine it to try and get everyone to have an open-mind about it. They tend to love bashing the game and one another more than being productive over there.. Good posts rarely last long..

We can use the attributes to boost skills without adding complexity to items.

Oh, I want complexity on items. By making itemization simpler, you get what we have now. All items look the same basically (stat-wise).

I'm not sure what you mean. I don't want to simplify itemization. I want to make it more versatile, but my approach attempts to keep affixes from getting out of hand. We already can't search for all the affixes we want on items, even with 6 choices. I want to make items more complex without making them more complex.. lol.